Oh my God, what am I doing? Ella thought as she pranced—yes, pranced—up the stairs buck naked on Tuesday night.
I know what I’m doing, she reminded herself. This is what I want. And I embrace it.
She knew her rear end was definitely bootylicious. Hank was a butt man, and seeing her from behind was probably driving him crazy in a good way that promised high sexual energy later. Hopefully, sooner rather than later. Hopefully, in about two minutes. Or less.
She threw herself on her bed.
Maybe in thirty seconds.
Please! In thirty seconds …
She started counting, and was at twenty-seven Mississippi, twenty-six Mississippi when he appeared at her door.
“Come on in,” she said, leaning back on her elbows, her knees propped up, kept primly together.
That wouldn’t last long.
That was the beauty of knowing someone already sexually. She was instantly comfortable. Hank knew her hot spots. She knew his—unless, of course, something had changed in the last ten years.
She’d had a few boyfriends over the last decade. One had lasted a whole year and a half. She’d even had two well-protected but steamy one-night stands with guys at conferences halfway across the world.
But nobody excited her and satisfied her the way Hank did. She was ready to join a convent after he left because she was sure she’d never want to have sex with another guy again. Luckily, she’d made the decision not to be so foolish and cut off her nose to spite her face. She was too young to swear off intimate encounters.
Yet she had to admit, not a single one had remotely reached the level of fantastic, mind-blowing lovemaking she’d shared with Hank.
He started unbuttoning and unzipping while she watched, and when she was at four Mississippi he landed on the bed next to her.
Hank. The man who’d left her, who didn’t deserve to be with her, was now naked as a jaybird too, and a fine specimen of manhood he was. She raked her glance over him from top to toe. “Mmm-mmm,” she said with the smallest shake of her head, to signify how intensely she appreciated his physique.
“That’s a new Southern thing you’ve picked up,” Hank said, almost grinning. But not.
She saw that he was torn between amusement and looking at her, appreciating her feminine form.
Well, let him look! Let him see what he’d been missing for a decade!
“I learned at Miss Thing’s feet how best to show appreciation for something pretty, or remarkable,” she said. “You’re pretty remarkable.”
“Not as remarkable as you,” he said, and ran his hand down her side.
She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy the feeling of his hand on her flesh. “You feel amazing,” she said.
He leaned over and kissed her breast—before he’d even kissed her mouth. And she let him. She jutted it higher, let him take more of her nipple into his mouth.
He grabbed her elbow, effectively making her fall on her back, and moved his mouth to her lips.
They kissed. With wild abandon. It was the only way she could describe it, and when she told the girls about it later—if she told the girls—that was what she would say. They kissed with wild abandon, their every inhibition gone. Then with the strength of a linebacker, she hooked his thigh with her leg and pulled him over on top of her. She had no idea how she managed that. She was petite, and he was a big guy. Her desperation to feel him covering her is what gave her the strength and agility.
When he was on top of her, she wrapped her legs around him and held him close, urging him toward union with her. And they’d barely started kissing.
But he was ready too. He was so ready.
And here she was. About to mess around with a man who’d done her wrong. What would her friends at Two Love Lane say?
She knew what they’d say.
But her survival instinct, which was really strong, wasn’t as powerful as her desire for Hank. That eclipsed everything.
“You have protection?” she said. She was barely aware of the words they’d spoken. She was too lost in sensation, in remembering, in running her hand up and down his back.
Hank.
Hank!
They still fit perfectly together.
“Wait a minute,” he murmured.
“You’re getting something?” she asked. “I forgot. I don’t have anything here. Aw, shoot. The Sicilian side of the family staying at my house might see my basket of condoms under the bathroom sink. I meant to move them.” She paused. “They’ve been collecting dust.”
She shouldn’t have told him that part! Why did she do that? She had a tendency to get close too fast, say too much, believe in sunshine and unicorns.
To trust too much.
That was her problem.
“Don’t worry about your relatives,” Hank said, in between kissing her breasts, and then her belly. She knew where he was going, and it wouldn’t require a condom. “You’re thirty years old. You don’t have to explain anything to anyone. And guess what? I don’t have anything either.”
“You mean you don’t always carry something in your wallet?” She was shocked.
And then she had the magnificent—stupid!—thought that maybe he’d been celibate since he’d left her, that she was the only woman he’d ever wanted to have. And so he’d suffered without sex all these years.
“I’m not a teenager.” He chuckled. “So, no, I don’t carry a condom in my wallet. If I’m going to have sex with someone, I pretty much know when and where ahead of time. Sadly.”
Oh. So he had had sex since he’d left her. Of course, he had. Too bad. She’d hoped—
No, she was a realist. Hank was a red-blooded, masculine male. And she wasn’t actually a narcissist. She knew her body wasn’t the only one in the entire world that could tempt him, especially over a period of ten years.
“Yeah, that’s a shame,” she said. “About the condom. But also about the fact that sex is scheduled for you.”
“I said too much.”
“So did I. About the dusty condoms.” As if she needed to repeat that. She just couldn’t stop herself.
They both laughed.
“I guess it’s part of getting older,” Ella said. “I mean, losing a sense of spontaneity. And wonder. Probably because we’re very busy with our careers. And being grown-ups. Doing taxes and having to pay bills does nothing for my libido.”
“Mine either, although I hire people to do that stuff.” He pressed a deep kiss in her belly, and her pelvis rose up in response. She wasn’t at all embarrassed. It was Hank. “And you know what? I haven’t lost that spontaneity with you.”
“Maybe that’s because we haven’t had sex in ten years. It’s new again.”
“Maybe,” he murmured. “But I don’t think that’s it. I really don’t.”
“You’re kind to say,” she said automatically, as if he’d complimented her on her dress. Or haircut.
“I’m not kind,” he said. And before she could respond, he moved between the apex of her thighs, his face warm on her most delicate flesh, his hair sweeping over nerve endings that clamored for more. He burrowed there, kissing every inch of her.
No tongue, though. Simply homage to a reunion between old friends—him and her lady business.
She almost chuckled thinking about the Scrabble game, how the word “tongue” had sent her over the edge, and she’d practically ripped her clothes off. It was because she remembered … Hank had excelled at loving her this way.
“What hand of fate gave you those letters?” she asked him, barely able to speak. “The Scrabble gods?”
“You mean ‘tongue’?” he asked, and then showed her what he was capable of with his.
“No, ‘stove,’” she said. Even in the midst of this, she could crack a joke, heady with lust as she was.
He started to laugh.
The vibrations took her to the next level. “Oh,” she said. It was sexy enough to make him stop laughing.
“Keep laughing,” she whispered. “Please.”
“No,” he said low, which worked even better than laughing.
“Keep saying no,” she said.
But he wouldn’t. He wrapped her legs around his shoulders and took his sweet time, giving her the kind of focused, thoughtful attention he gave to everything in his life.
Within seconds, she was lost. Out of her mind.
Why, she managed to think right in the middle of it, why did this ever go away?
It was the best thing that had ever happened to her. If this happened to her every day, she would never want for anything more. She’d give up her special accounts at her favorite boutiques, her regular pedicures and manicures, her expensive perfume, and even her shoe collection.
“Hank,” she cried as wave after wave took her. And was annoyed with herself. She shouldn’t have called his name. Because no doubt he could tell from how she said it that he was the best thing that had ever happened to her.
Not the sex, great as it was. Him.
He was nirvana.
When the pleasure finally subsided, she closed her eyes and turned her head to the side, ready to melt into the sheets, to disappear so she could savor what had just happened.
His phone rang.
Her eyes flew open.
Hank cursed. The phone was across the room on top of the bureau. “I gotta get it,” he said.
She followed him with her eyes. He didn’t take his off her either. “Hello?” he said, grinning at her.
She smiled back and imagined herself taking a bath with him. In bubbles. With wine.…
She felt herself drift off as he spoke.
“Hey,” he whispered close to her ear, what felt like a second later.
She came instantly awake. “Oops,” she said. “I’m so sorry. That was the biggest—I mean, I haven’t had something like that happen in a very long time. I mean, of that caliber. It kind of knocked me out.”
“I’m flattered,” he said. “It’s fine. I had to take that call. I have to get to the set.”
“You do?”
“Yes. In the next thirty minutes. They were able to clear the end of the Battery wall where we’re doing that nighttime shot. We’re supposed to do it tomorrow night, but it’s going to rain.”
She was still lying on her pillow. “Oh. Lucky I’m not in it.” But then she remembered it was Hank’s turn for sexual satisfaction now. He was ready. That much was clear. “We need to take care of you first,” she said, “before you go.”
“Nope.”
She sat up on her elbows again. “What? That’s crazy!” And then she looked down the length of his body and couldn’t stop looking. “That’s actually criminal. I can’t leave you like that.”
“Sure you can,” he said, and grabbed his jeans from the floor and slipped into them. “This is why they pay me the big bucks.” He was wearing no boxers. She hadn’t even noticed when he’d stripped earlier.
“You used to wear boxers,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. I packed for myself this time and forgot them.” He zipped up his jeans.
Good thing he wasn’t outside around the paparazzi in the daylight. “What a shame,” she said. Not. It wasn’t a shame at all. She wished she could witness Hank in an aroused state in a pair of jeans and no shirt on all the time. “Are you going to go commando every day you’re here?”
“Except on the set, I guess,” he said. “They dress me from the inside out. In fact, I can steal a couple of pairs of boxers there.”
“No!”
“Okay.” He shrugged and pulled on his shirt, started buttoning.
“Why are you okay with not … being satisfied?” she asked, still resting on her elbows.
“Because I’m a professional actor,” he said, “who’s got a job to do.”
“Oh, come on. I get that, but you’re not even grumbling.”
“It’s because I had a great time,” he said. “I feel lucky that I got to be with you. I’m counting my blessings. I could live off the visuals I have now in my head of you naked in this bed tonight for another ten years.”
She blushed. “And why would I grumble when I know we’re going to do this a lot this week?” he added.
“That’s right!” She got excited at the thought.
He chuckled. “Besides, it was so obvious you were through.”
She felt sheepish. “Really?”
“You were out like a light during that phone call.”
“Sorry.” She bit the edge of her thumb. “That was rude of me.”
He laughed. “That’s what happens when you interrupt a great moment to take a lousy phone call telling you to report to work.”
She couldn’t help laughing too. “Oh, Hank, I’m sorry.”
“And to be honest,” he said with a grin, “if you and I ever got back together, I’d owe you ten years’ worth of sex to make up for my absenteeism anyway.”
“Getting back together?” She swung her legs over the side of the bed. She felt light and happy. And she didn’t take him seriously. She knew what he meant.
“I didn’t say we were.” He sat next to her. “I’m just saying if we did.”
“We’ve only been in the same place together two days,” she reminded him.
“Right. And we have a week. Not even.”
“This is all rather…” She put her hands in the air, moved them up and down, palms up, not exactly sure what she was going for.
“This is all sudden.”
“Exactly.” She shook her head. “No one in their right mind—especially two people as smart as we are—”
“We know better than to—”
Neither one of them could finish the sentence. Ella didn’t mind. She got the gist of it: they were crazy. This week was going to be wild and exciting. And then it would be over.